Anxiety — protagonists

Do-gooder

Full Name

Anxiety

Alias

None

Origin

Inside Out 2

Occupation

Riley's anxiety

Leader of Riley's new emotions (temporarily)

Powers / Skills

Anxiety embodiment
High intelligence
Scheming
Technological expertise
Charisma
Cunning
Manipulation
Leadership
Opprobrium
Immense agility
Immense durability
Supersonic speed
Business skills
Abilities to control Riley's schedules

Hobby

Arguing with Joy.

Manipulating Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment.
Making sure others follow her lead (all formerly).
Controlling Riley's mind.
Getting nervous.
Drinking coffee.
Checking calenders.

Goals

Betray Bree and Grace and take over Riley's mind by getting rid of Joy and her friends when they tried to stop her (temporarily succeeded).
Change Riley in order to make her a Firehawk.
Stop Joy, her friends, Bree and Grace from interfering with her plans (both failed and abandoned).
Make amends for her actions (succeeded).
Co-exist with Riley's other emotions and fulfill the role she's given (ongoing).

Family

Riley Andersen (host)

Friends / Allies

Envy (best friend)

Ennui
Embarrassment
Nostalgia
Joy (close friend)
Sadness
Fear
Anger
Disgust

Enemies

Joy

Sadness
Fear
Anger
Disgust
Bree Young
Grace Hsieh
Embarrassment (all formerly)

Type of Hero

Paranoid Control Freak

“	I'm Anxiety. I'm one of Riley's new emotions, and we are just super jazzed to be here! Where can I put my stuff?	„
	~ Anxiety introducing herself to Riley's original emotions.

“	We all have a job to do. You make Riley happy, Sadness makes her sad, Fear protects her from the scary stuff she can see, and MY job is to protect her from the scary stuff she CAN’T see! I plan for the future.	„
	~ Anxiety explaining her and the new emotions' involvement in Riley's life.

“	Joy... I'm sorry. I was just trying to protect her... But you’re right. We don’t get to choose who Riley is.	„
	~ Anxiety's redemption, as she apologizes to Joy, feeling remorseful after realizing her reckless actions in wanting to control Riley's life.

Anxiety is the main antagonist of Pixar's 28th full-length feature film Inside Out 2.

She is Riley's sixth overall emotion and the first new emotion Riley experiences as a result of hitting puberty, with the other new Emotions being Embarrassment, Ennui, and Envy.

While she bottles up Riley's old Emotions and kicks them out of Headquarters, the other Emotions and her actions make her see the error of her ways, and they all come to a mutual understanding of each other.

She was voiced by Maya Hawke, who also portrayed Robin Buckley in Stranger Things.

Appearance

Anxiety appears as an orange emotion with a frog-like face, a volcanic eruption like updo of a darker shade of the same color and jade green eyes, orange and white-striped long-wool sweater, burnt sienna pants attached by a blackish-brown belt with a gold button-shaped buckle, and dark brown military tightly laced up boots.

In the book, Go to Sleep, Anxiety!, she's seen wearing a long sleeved, orange and white striped nightgown that matches her ordinary attire and brown slippers.

Personality

Like its namesake, Anxiety is shown to be a nervous emotion. She's extremely anxious about meeting preexisting emotions like Joy, especially because she wants to make a good first impression. Because her role is to protect Riley from things she "can't see", she is also an intense planner, predicting everything that can go wrong so that she can find a way to avoid them. Everything must go exactly as it must happen as she had planned, with every mistake being seen as something that may "haunt" her later.

During her first appearance she is described to be highly energetic, zealous, and a typical geek filled with excitement towards working with the original five emotions. Similar to Fear, Anxiety is prone to overthinking things, though to a larger extent. While Fear's overthinking is a reaction to a perceived threat that soon disappears once that threat is out of sight, Anxiety projects those fears, leading her to try to think of any scenario that can go wrong, even if they are not a reality. This is showed on her overplanning regarding Riley's future on high school, leading her to pressure the girl to do everything she could to get a spot on the hockey team of her future high school and blend in with the older girls. However, none of this is out of malice as her intent was to protect Riley from being alone in high school.

Despite being self-aware and extremely analytical, Anxiety is not without her limits. Her extreme overthinking and insecurities can blind her judgment causing her to put past her limits and forget what was truly important. Her hardworking and ambitious nature is overshadowed by her restlessness and self-destructive mindset, shown through Riley's feelings of inadequacy through Anxiety's driving. The more Anxiety kept adding to Riley's Sense of Self about trying to become good enough to make the team, the more Riley felt that she really was not good enough, until it became a reality to her, leading to both Riley and Anxiety to have an anxiety attack.

Similar to Joy in the first movie, Anxiety is also a control-freak, wanting nothing but to be in control of everything in Riley's life, hating when she is placed on the backseat of the controls, especially if that strays away from her plans. However, she is willing to get rid of everything she sees as unnecessary and/or dangerous to what she perceives as being the right thing for Riley, being extremely pragmatic about it, even if she has to "bottle up" the old emotions or reinvent Riley's entire sense of self. The more Anxiety tried to change things into what she believed to be Riley's best self, she would take even more control over everything, even if was too much for her to handle, until the point she got stuck into her own feelings of anxiety.

Anxiety's actions seemed to have initial benefit, but eventually accumulates into a complete backfire. Other than the character, it is a fairly accurate summation of how anxiety is meant to protect someone, and first reactions seem beneficial, but ultimately it collapses due to insecurity and inability to see beyond stress and the worst case scenarios. It also provides a decent irony of how in spite of Anxiety looking ahead, plans built by desperation and insecurity fall apart before ever reaching the long-term goal.

After Joy was able to convince her to let go of her control over Riley, Anxiety was able to see how her desire to shape Riley into what she perceived to be the best version of by any means necessary was really just hurting her. Not only that, but, with a little help from Joy's positivity, she also learned to let go of the worries Riley didn't have control on, focusing only on the ones she did.

By the end of the movie, she still worries about what could happen, but with Joy and the other emotions' help, she learned to be less controlling, and more helpful.

Biography

Inside Out 2

Introduction and HQ Usurpation

Anxiety first shows up after the base is being renovated following Riley going through puberty. From there, Anxiety and the other new emotions introduce themselves to Joy and the other emotions. Anxiety, concerned with Riley's well-being decides to remove her sense of self and create a new one for Riley's future, she has Embarrassment bottle up Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear, after they tried to stop her, as well as saying that Riley doesn't need them anymore, having them locked up in the back of her mind, incriminated as secrets. Throughout the film, Anxiety changes up Riley's sense of self by spurring the belief that being a Firehawk will prevent Riley from being alone.

Risky Future Plans for Riley

Anxiety then goes into Riley's imagination in order to create scenarios that would validate this belief, causing her to overthink, as she wanted to prevent Riley from making any potential mistakes, going as far as making Riley wake up early in the morning to make her practice for the game more.

By the final day of training, Anxiety excitedly had completed Riley's new Sense of Self, but which causes her to think that she isn't good enough, much to Anxiety and all the other emotions horror, that her plan make Riley feel better about herself didn't work. At this point, Anxiety desperately tries to make Riley compete the final game anyway despite how she's feeling. Sadness attempts to bring the others back but Anxiety recklessly and desperately stops them by collapsing the pipes.

Endless Pressure

Anxiety pressured Riley to score three goals to the point that Riley ignores her teammates, and even gets Grace hurt at the ice rink, accidentally bumping into her. Because of this, Riley was sent to the penalty box, causing her distress. When Anxiety realizes her mistake (along with Envy calling her out for it), she tries to fix it, only to give Riley a panic attack, the emotions try to pull her bad sense of self out, only to be very stuck despite the whole group pulling due to Anxiety typing to much on the console, Joy and the others return to help and Joy intervenes, but Anxiety was going way to fast to stop her, as Joy calmly tells Anxiety she to let go of Riley, that she can't control her life. Which she does so as Joy pulls Anxiety out.

Redemption and Reconciliation with the Other Emotions

Joy manages to put Riley's original sense of self back in it's place, but Riley was still panicking as the negative emotions Joy, Anger, Fear and Disgust used as an avalanche makes her still panic. As Anxiety feels completely remorseful, she apologizes to Joy for her foolish actions, knowing now how wrong she was for trying to control Riley. Making Joy see that they were practically controlling her too, she later removes Riley's old sense of self of to form a new one, where she hugs it to calm Riley down, as all the other emotions even Anxiety do so, which calms Riley down and makes her atone with her friends.

By the end of the movie, Anxiety is still in headquarters, overthinking whether or not Riley was going to get accepted into the team, and Joy calming her down, telling her to focus on things that cannot be controlled, such as exams and other important tasks. Anxiety now coexists peacefully with the other emotions.

Powers and abilities

Powers

Anxiety Embodiment: Anxiety embodies all of Riley's anxieties and stresses about the future.
- Anxiety Inducement: Anxiety, using the console, can cause Riley to experience immense stress.
- Immense Durability: Anxiety is remarkably durable, withstanding physical pressure without concern.
- Supersonic Speed: When powered by a panic attack, Anxiety can travel so quickly she breaks the conventional sound barrier and becomes an untouchable blur of afterimages.
  - Immense Agility: From her speed, Anxiety is incredibly agile.

Abilities

Quotes

“

Oh, my gosh. I am just such a huge fan of yours. And now here I am, meeting you, face to face. (excited squeal) Okay, how can I help? I can take notes, get coffee, manage your calendar, walk your dog, carry your things, watch you sleep.

„

“

Anything. Just call my name, and I'm here for you.

„

“

Oh, I'm sorry. I can get ahead of myself. Uh, I'm Anxiety. I'm one of Riley's new emotions, and we are just super jazzed to be here. Where can I put my stuff?

„

“

That's Embarrassment. He's not really big on eye contact, or uh, like talking, but he's a really sweet guy.

„

“

That's not gonna haunt us for the rest of our lives at all.

„

“

I know change is scary, but we need new friends or we'll be totally alone in high school. Out with the old, in with the new.

„

“

I am truly sorry. I was so looking forward to working with you guys.

„

“	Riley's life is more complex now. It requires more sophisticated emotions than all of you. You’re just aren’t what she needs anymore, Joy.	„
	~ Anxiety betraying Joy and the old emotions.

“

It's not forever, it's just until Riley makes Varsity or until she turns 18 or-or maybe forever? I don't know we'll have to see! Uh, bye!

„

“	Don’t worry, Riley. You’re in good hands. Now’ let’s change everything about you.	„
	~ Anxiety beginning her plan.

“	Joy, I know you're in there.	„
	~ Anxiety seeing Joy in Fort Pillowton.

“	MY PROJECTIONS!!	„
	~ Anxiety.

“	We need to be prepared! Oh, no!	„
	~ Anxiety.

“	Envy: You hurt Grace! Anxiety: I-it all happened so fast! I didn’t even see her.	„
	~ Anxiety being scolded by Envy after she unintentionally led Riley hurt Grace.

“	Oh no, what did I do?	„
	~ Anxiety showing remorse for her actions.

“	You have to score Riley, or this will have been for nothing!	„
	~ Anxiety pressuring Riley during her anxiety attack.

Gallery

Trivia

She is the third main antagonist in a Pixar film to be female, after Evelyn Deavor from Incredibles 2 and Gabby Gabby from Toy Story 4.
She is Maya Hawkes' first animated role.
Anxiety serves as a foil to Joy, displaying what she could've been if she only allowed certain Emotions to be incorporated in Riley's mind (something that nearly happened in the first film).
- Both were control freaks that have good intentions, but fail to register criticism due to strong self-assurance.
- Both are fast-talking and tend to be hyperactive.
- They are typically friendly, but can end up smothering any conversations by talking over others.
- Both exiled Emotions that were deemed to be unhelpful to Riley.
- Joy focused on the short-term at the expense of the long, whereas Anxiety disregarded the short-term to dwell on the long. Yet, their inherent natures work against their goals.